Posted: Mon, Oct 22, 2001, 1:13 PM ET (1713 GMT)
An Indian launch vehicle successfully placed three spacecraft into polar orbit Monday. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C3 lifted off from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launch site at Sriharikota, on the east coast of India, at 12:53 am EDT (0453 GMT) Monday. It placed into a 568-km polar orbit its primary payload, ISRO's Technology Experiment Satellite, as well as two small European spacecraft, PROBA from Belgium and BIRD from Germany. The launch was the first for the PSLV since a May 1999 flight that launched an Indian remote sensing spacecraft and two small satellites for Germany and South Korea. India has focused more in recent years on a more powerful booster, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, which completed its first test flight in April of this year.